According to a 2011 study there were approximately 400,540 American children in foster care. Of that number only 115,000 were eligible for adoption. This is usually based on parental rights. Many parents are unable to care for their children, but are unwilling to release their parental rights to family members or adoptive parents.

What does this have to do with Obamacare? A lot. While children are in foster care they are eligible for health insurance through government programs. The hope is no child will age out of the system, but unfortunately many do.

One of the non-disputed likable aspects of the Affordable Care Act states that children are allowed to remain on their parent's policy until they are 26. This is a huge help to many young adults with parents. However, it does not protect foster children who are released from governmental programs as young adults.

First do no harm. That's a tenet of medical ethics that future doctors worldwide are taught in medical school.

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Republicans, who control the governor's office as well as both houses of the Florida legislature, were confident the U.S. Supreme Court would declare the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. Not only did they vote to prohibit the state from spending money to implement a law they just knew would be overturned by the high court, they refused to accept money from the federal government that would have enabled the state's department of insurance to do a better job of regulating health insurers and enforcing new consumer protections in the law.

When the Supreme Court shocked Obamacare opponents last year by upholding the law, Florida lawmakers were in a pickle.

Their response? They passed a bill that prohibits the state's Office of Insurance Regulation from protecting consumers from unreasonable rate increases for two years.

I learned about what is essentially a "first, do as much harm as possible" bill in a letter the nine Democrats in the Florida congressional delegation sent to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius earlier this month pleading with her to step in to protect Floridians by taking an active role in regulating rate increases in the state.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/florida-insurers-are-now_b_3785206.html